Lost Boys
by RagnarokSkurai
Summary: Everworld Hooker AU. Athena taught David the first rule of whoring. [DavidxLoki, ChristopherxJalil, other]
1. Chapter 1

David remembers his first trick like it was yesterday. Everyone in between is pretty faded, except for the regulars and the occasional asshole, but he'll remember Donny forever.

Donny still comes around sometimes. David isn't his cup of tea though. Not anymore. David's grown too big for that; he has too many muscles and too much hair that isn't on his head. No matter how pretty and fresh-faced he looks, he isn't a boy anymore. Donny likes boys.

David was young when he got here. Younger than most. He always looked even younger than his age too. That served him pretty well for a few years. He's small, kind of fragile looking. Pretty too, once he let his hair grow out. It was Athena who taught him to do that. Taught him the first rule of whoring – take what you've got and make it what they want. Anyone can spread their legs or drop to their knees and open their mouths. True, you've got to get good at that sometime, but the first step was getting their attention.

David looked like a boy. Like a doll, like a broken doll, he thinks bitterly, but they liked that. He's too old for it now. He plays rebellious teenager in tight jeans and gets a new crowd. Businessmen who like to pretending they're fucking their son, or their son's best friend, or the new intern in the mailroom; the ones who never enjoyed their society wives but can't stand them now that the parts have started to sag. There are the politicians so far in the closet that they can't chance sleeping with anyone else. It's pretty sad, David thinks, that the only sex they'll probably ever enjoy comes from a hooker. Paying someone to keep their mouths shut means more than hoping someone will love you enough to. Then there are just the plain old closeted ones. They're almost a _relief_.

David wonders what the hell _happened_ to normal sex. He's sure it existed, once upon a time. He remembers being traumatized when his parents used to do it, back before the divorce. Now he wishes he could remember.

Once in a while he gets picked up by college kids for parties. Jalil says he's taking chances he shouldn't with those jobs, but considering Jalil's got a few select, steady clients who pay him well, David doesn't think Jalil has much room to talk. Parties are risky but profitable. David figures it's a risky business anyway. He doesn't have much to lose.

Jalil's been with David for a few years now. They aren't friends, exactly, because this isn't the line of work for friends. Jalil is something more than an acquaintance though, so David will call Jalil his friend for lack of a better word.

Jalil seems like any other student in this town until you look him in the eyes, which are dark and even and flat like a lake in winter. It's in his voice, too, the easy coldness, soothing and stinging by turns. He's an expert at knots and at knowing just what points on anyone's body bring the most pleasure or pain. There's no one else quite like Jalil around here, and everybody knows it.

Jalil and David stick together for a pretty simple reason: survival. You don't hang around with people who are going to bring you down. Jalil doesn't do drugs. Doesn't deliver them, doesn't sell them, doesn't touch them at all. Neither does David, unlike most of the others they know. David thinks its too dangerous. The others say it makes it easier. They get a cut of the goods and they don't feel until they want to and when they want to it's like flying. David has enough problems with feeling all ready and Jalil's just too fucking smart to bother.

Athena taught him a lot, but there's one thing David's learned on his own. It's _all_ about survival. Life. And when the chips are down and life's dealt you a shitty hand, you'd be surprised what you can come up with. You'd be surprised what people will do just to survive.

He's done it. He knows.


	2. Chapter 2

David's never had any delusions about what he does. He wasn't in the right line of work for delusions. He's a _whore_.

That said – it's not a bad job. Not for everyone, obviously, but nothing is. David likes it well enough. It doesn't require people skills. He doesn't have to answer to anyone other than Loki, and that's only sometimes. He doesn't have to work very long or very hard. He's learned to lie. He makes good money. He calls the shots, when and where and who and how and how much. This is a pretty dangerous neighborhood, but not as bad as it could be. It's well-established. Loki's got a lot of control; there's no one challenging him, no neighbor fighting for turf. And the main trade is sex, not drugs, so the dealing is pretty cut and dry, and the cops aren't nearly as concerned. He's not afraid, or at least he's not afraid in the same way he used to be.

It's home though. It's been home for five years now. David knows it in and out, knows all the people in and out. Jalil, of course. There's Ganymede in the next building over, who sells and uses just about every drug known to man. Then there's Sven, on the floor below him, who took a knife through the face. They call him 'Sword Eater' now. He's pretty popular around here. People like how he looks – dangerous, used. David thinks he looks sad, but that's because he bothers to look. There's Keith, and Jason, and Jean-Claude. Then there's the next block over, which Neptune runs. He's got a good line-up – Otus, Ephialtes, Antaeus, Briaeus, Neleus, Pelias, and Triton – but he's been known to kill guys for looking at him the wrong way. He's probably passed the line between "paranoid from the drugs" into full-on crazy

David knows them all. He's the de facto protector of the neighborhood. Technically Loki is, and Fenrir does his dirty work, but David handles the day-to-day – scaring off the assholes who won't quit, getting rid of anyone who just shouldn't be here. An ounce of prevention is often worth a bullet in someone's back later. David's not a pacifist, by any means. No one here is. But the only thing blood gets you is more blood. David knows that. Which isn't to say that it shouldn't happen sometimes, but the time needs to be right. The reason has to be good. Or the rewards do.

It helps that people don't usually stumble into the neighborhood by accident. They know what they're looking for. Most of the hookers aren't girls here, because girls are easy to come by other places. It's a… different crowd here, for lack of a better word. This is a place where anything goes and everything is available for the right price. Seedy doesn't even begin to describe it. 

Still. Home. David's got friends, though his job doesn't encourage friendships anymore than it does delusions. Jalil, April and Senna.

April's different from most of them. Her dad comes down here almost every week, begging her to come back home. Maybe she's got a reason for not going back. She started out across town as an actress. She had the body, the face, the actual talent, but got chewed up and spit out anyway. She was a waitress, but the pay was shitty and the customers just as bad. She was a stripper for a while, and that was better money, but lap dances turn all too quickly into something else, especially when the rent's two weeks overdue and you haven't eaten in three days. April's pretty in that wholesome Irish girl way. She dresses in a school uniform most of the time. Gets a lot of freaks, a lot of guys who want her to call them 'Daddy' or 'sir'. She's been here for three years, smokes like a chimney, and still looks like a breath of fresh air. It's why she's lasted as long as she has. Also means she gets knocked around a bit. Fenrir usually follows her around, stands outside her door.

Senna's different too. Night to April's day. She's pretty, yeah, but in that luminous, frail way, where she's thin as a bone and just as pale. Always with a faraway look in her eyes, always coked to the gills. She likes it that way and her clients are the kind who don't mind. She's a little crazy. All junkies are. David makes a habit of staying away from junkies, but he makes an exception for Senna. Why? Who knows. He likes her. He doesn't know about that either. He protects her when April and Fenrir aren't around. It feels like the least he can do.

Jalil calls him the White Knight sometimes, mockingly. David's not sure just how badly he's being made fun of – if Jalil thinks he's a dumbass, or just naïve.

He isn't either. He just knows how much things like that cost him -- nothing, and God only knows who he could save. What could happen.

Hell. Maybe that is naive.


	3. Chapter 3

It's been a slow night. David's just off his third job, only about a hundred fifty up from where he started. It's just too cold of a night, doing that miserable misting rain thing that Chicago seems to do so well. He should just scrap the night, get some rest. Pick up Jalil and get something to eat.

On the way over he passes April leaning on the front door of a car, laughing and flipping her hair like any cheerleader he ever knew. It amazes David that she can still laugh like that, like the guy isn't sitting there talking about her tits or how much for a quick fuck. Sometimes he thinks she's crazier than Senna.

He waits around Jalil's doorway until his Thursday night leaves. It's a weird old guy in a long wool coat who talks about taking Jalil with him to Europe. Jalil says he's got the money to do it, but he gives David the heebie jeebies. Jalil says he's just got issues. David's pretty sure no one _without_ issues would go to Jalil.

Jalil tried explaining what he did once. Why he did it. David just can't get behind the concept of pleasure and pain as one thing. As one _good_ thing. David knows pain and he doesn't like it. The whole concept is more complicated than that, of course – it always is with Jalil, but David can't handle him all of the time. Can't keep up. He doesn't have that kind of attention span. Probably doesn't have the IQ either. At any rate, Jalil does his thing and David does his, and the important thing is that the bills get paid on time.

David knocks on the door, a solid, heavy thump that means it's anyone but a customer. They always knock a little timidly, the last vestiges of their consciences rising to the surface.

David gives him thirty seconds before he knocks again. This time Jalil opens up.

"What?"

"I'm hungry."

Jalil sighs and lets his head hang against the doorjamb. David doesn't come around often -- he's too antisocial, too remote -- but when he does there's no stopping him.

"Where are we going to eat, oh great leader?"

"Loki's."

Jalil coughs delicately. "That's not food."

"Don't be so picky."

"You're going to drop dead from a heart attack mid-job."

David shrugs. He doesn't really care what he's eating as long as it's not poisoning him. "I just want something warm."

"I want something with electrolytes and greater nutritional value than what can be found in a Twinkie."

"You frighten me."

Jalil nudges David's shoulder and raises an eyebrow. "Are you sure it's me you should be afraid of?" They're stopped directly outside Loki's.

David jams his hands into his pockets. "You know I'll be fine. You know he won't do anything."

"Are you trying to convince me or convince yourself?"

"Jalil, no psychobabble, okay? Not today."

It's pretty common knowledge around the neighborhood that Loki wants David; one of those things everyone knows but no one mentions. Maybe because Loki's boys have a bad habit of disappearing and turning up in back alleys. Not always. Fenrir's still around, after all. Maybe they deserved back alleys and slit throats. Anyway, it might not be a good idea to say yes, but it's definitely a bad idea to say no. If Loki wants something, he can take it. Everyone knows that too.

David thinks about it sometimes. It would probably be a smart move on his part, getting a little more of Loki's protection. Loki doesn't push – just openly suggests – but every man has his breaking point, and God knows what Loki could do if he reached his.

Which isn't to say Loki's a bad guy. He protects the neighborhood. He pays off the cops. He keeps K.A. Anor from taking over this neighborhood like the others. Sure, he takes some of the profit, but not a lot. Loki's not evil in the strictest sense of the world. A criminal, sure, but according to the Chicago Police Department, so's David. Loki's good to those who are good to him, and ten steps beyond ruthless to those that get in his way.

Remember the boys in the back alleys?

David isn't sure what keeps him from saying yes. Spreading his legs is in the job description – really, what's one more?

"You coming in?"

"I don't think so, no. See you later."

David squares his shoulders. "Of course."


	4. Interlude Senna

Meat. That's what they think she is. That's what they are. Hulking piles of meat, stitched together with joints and muscles, strapped to white bones, animated with something that she wishes would just die. Feels like she's being smothered in meat, when she thinks about it.

So she doesn't think about it. She's hard, she's tough, but she's not immortal. Even gods have their breaking points. Even gods have a weakness.

She's not a god. No one is, around here, even if they were once. She should have been. She should have been something. Not 'something' in the way people normally talk about it. Not the something April should have been or the something Jalil could still be, but _something_. Something new. Something original. Something… sought. But she's not. Not in the way she should be. It's lost now, all lost. Gone forever, fucked up somewhere along the line, on some basic level that can't ever be fixed. All they see is the meat. Meat, meat, meat. Too substantial, too heavy, soaked when blood when she should be white, light as a feather, intransient. She feels like the clay before Pygmalion bothered to dream, the marble before Michelangelo set it free. She feels heavy and earthbound, trapped within her body.

Still. She won't be dismissed. She's too good for that. Her destiny is adrift – she's a queen without a country, but that doesn't change the fact that she's a queen. All she needs is her country. She's not the kind of queen to wait for diplomacy to take its course, not the kind of queen who would marry a king or a prince just for a home and crown. She fights for her own country. She'll carve it out, bit by bit, inch by inch. A little from everyone, a little from everywhere, digging her fingers in deeper and deeper. Little Jack Horner, pulling out plums. Twisting in and around and out.

No one notices. They aren't smart enough. Not much better than meat. True, they _know_ they're meat, which puts them a step ahead, but none of the meat is between their ears. Fenrir thinks that small means breakable; David, that junkie means stupid. Loki thinks whores can be just crushed under his thumb, but April's stupidest of all. April thinks that Senna isn't meat at all, that she's something more. April can't see what's right in front of her, can't see that she'll be smothered underneath it all – the dark malignancy, purple-red, the bruise on the inside.

The only one with any sense is Jalil. Jalil, who knows he is meat – that they are all meat, that they are meat wanting meat, a parasite that feeds on itself, that they are all tapeworms wriggling around in each others' bodies. But even he's too smart. He'll be gone soon. He's destined for bigger things. Different meat. More between the ears and less between the legs.

She laughs. She laughs a lot sometimes, and it scares April. Probably the only survival instinct she's ever seen her show. April should be back soon too. She'll have her lay out another line. Maybe two.

She's biding her time. The drugs help.

Make her forget she's meat.


	5. Chapter 4

Loki remembers seeing David for the first time like the proverbial yesterday. It creeped into the deepest recess of his memory, tainting everything since.

Loki wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

David showed up in the neighborhood four years ago, on Athena's corner. It was maybe midnight, eleven o'clock. Brisk business. Athena was holding down her part of the street with some of the more unique attractions the neighborhood employed.

He'd been heading there because Athena had been holding out on him again – not because she was greedy, but because she liked to bust his balls. It's a gesture of friendship, in its own weird way. She trusts she won't get in trouble for her little trick. It reminded Loki of the old days, before he took over, when Athena was just another peon like him. All the shit they went though, all the shit they took. For that, Loki has let Athena get away with murder, never mind tucking a little money away.

He doesn't see the kid at first; he's too busy looking for Athena. It shouldn't be so hard to find a six foot tall cross dresser, even in this neighborhood.

Then he sees the kid.

Loki's in the import/export business, so although his use of drugs never goes beyond recreational, his knowledge of what it can do to a person is extensive. He knows if you aren't an addict, it's only because you've never tried drugs, or you haven't found the right one.

This is his. This kid. This pretty, awkward boy. He's as tall as Athena, and lanky, like his last growth spurt wasn't kind to him. Deeply tanned skin of someone who spends all his time outside, playing in a park, or a backyard in the 'burbs. Dark shaggy hair, eyes like a cat. He's wary and angry and sad, like any kid who's ever seen anything of the world.

Loki's not deluding himself. He's not stupid about it. This is a kid. Flat out. Not old enough to drive. Barely any hair on his body, soft skin, soft mouth, all eyes and splayed limbs. And yeah, there are people who would want him for that reason. They want the fear, the uncertainty, the trembling, soft little bodies doing very adult things. Loki caters to them when he has to – business is business – but he'd never counted himself among them. He's almost ashamed to. Almost, because in all of his life, Loki hasn't been ashamed of much of anything, and he won't be ashamed of this. In his whole life he's never felt for anyone what he felt for that kid in three seconds.

He was beautiful.

What would he do if Loki tried to touch him? He looked too street to be offended, and really, for how many other reasons could he be down here? If he wanted drugs, Loki could get him drugs. He almost hoped for drugs – he could _deal_ with drugs. He'd give the kid all the drugs he could handle. Coke for breakfast, heroin for lunch, E for dinner, just as long as he spent sundown to sunup in Loki's bed.

He wants to put his fingers in that soft, wet mouth. Follow the trail of hairs down his stomach, spreading his legs so Loki can taste the little pucker there. Fucking him until he is only mewls and soft whines, until he can't move without some part of him burning from what Loki has done to him. He wants to suck him off, leave beard burn all over his soft lithe thighs. Loki wants that kind of power over the kid. To take him to his bed, keep him there. Beautiful boy who would probably gut him if he had that chance. But he doesn't want him to be afraid. He wants to avoid that. He wants the boy pushing back with each thrust, moaning and begging for more. He wants him so hard he won't know what to do with himself. He _wants_ this kid, and he's going to push if he has to.

He's not ashamed of it. Not ashamed of all the debauched, depraved, and completely illegal things he wants to do to him. Not ashamed at all.

Athena was lounging against the front of her building, just waiting for him to show up. He wondered sometimes about all the leeway he gives her, but she hasn't steered him wrong yet, and it's worth a little loss now and then for a little insider info.

Athena's in something bright red and blue tonight. It hurt his eyes just to look at her, but he put his arm around her waist. "Who is he?"

Athena had just laughed, one hand sliding down his side. "I don't think he's quite ready for you yet."

No one would ever be ready for what he wanted. He's looking at the kid like he could eat him alive and he knows it. He still can't stop.

"If he wants to," he said evenly. "You teach him." Teach him all your tricks, how to read people, what to charge, how much to bring to the diner each week. Everything. Teach him to stay alive.

She did.

* * *

Loki watches David walk into the diner. He always knows when David is around.

He still wants David. He knows it, David knows it; everybody knows it. He's got no reason to hide it. He's just biding his time. Waiting costs him nothing but a little patience. He waited eighteen years to get where he is today, he can wait for David. Not that Loki's been _waiting_ for David -- pining after him -- but there's always that niggling thought. Always that want.

Four years ago he met David, and he knows people wonder why he didn't back then. And the simple answer is that he knew, even then, that possession was forever. That strong a feeling didn't disappear. It could probably end fuck-all badly, but it wouldn't disappear. Back then he thought obsession would have been a bit much for a fifteen year old. Now he realizes it's a bit much for anyone. Should he have taken David when he had the chance? Would he have felt any better if he had been the one to break him? David's broken anyway. And there's something to be said about breaking your toys – at least they're always yours.

It makes it all right, almost – wanting that fifteen year old boy. Loki's come to terms with it. He didn't want David because David was a virgin, or because he was young. He just wanted him. He still wants him, he still wants to do all of those things, no matter how different it would be. He doesn't know what makes up chemistry, what makes a person attracted to another, but he and David have it in spades.

He can't characterize it. He gave up on that a long time ago. He just knew it the first moment he saw David, and the want is the important part, not the why. He knows somewhere in his bones that if he walked over to touch David right now, David would be warm, like he repels water. David makes it seems like nothing touches him, even though Loki knows very well it's a lie.

Everyone has a soft spot. Everyone has an Achilles' heel. On the outside David is all sharp points and cutting edges, true. Touch him when he doesn't feel like letting you, draw back a bleeding hand. And his armor is hard, but thin. Loki wants to find the weak spot, the right place to grab so he can sink in his fingers, so he can tear that armor open and crawl inside.

When Loki sees something he wants, he keeps it forever. Clings to it, no matter how long it takes. He can wait. He'd wait for the end of the world is it meant getting what he wanted. Nobody will ever take from him again. Loki Valhalla does not cut his losses.


	6. Chapter 5

David remembers the first time he met Loki. They way Loki looked at him. The same way some of his mother's boyfriends looked at him. The only difference is they did it covertly, in the shadows, under hooded eyes. Loki doesn't bother to hide. Loki looked at him like he would eat David alive and didn't care who the fuck knew it. He didn't. Because who the fuck was going to stop him, right? Who the _fuck_ was going to stop him.

And it's not that David doesn't think Loki is attractive. He does. He can admit that. Fuck, who the hell _wouldn't_ want Loki? He's like something carved out of marble. And it's not that David doesn't wonder. What would Loki's hands be like? His mouth? Loki's grins are all fanged, and his hands are large, bruised. His body is a weapon. A tool. And Loki still looks at him like he wants to devour him, like he could rip out David's soul just by looking in his eyes. It leaves David scorched to the bone, turned on, frightened, safe and defenseless all at once. And if that doesn't frighten him then what the fuck should?

Still. David doesn't have a good reason for not sleeping with Loki. Not really. It's practically in the job description, for fuck's sake. There aren't any pimps here, but the person who protects him is Loki. The person he pays every week for that protection is Loki.

Maybe that's why he doesn't do it. This business isn't about want – at least not on his end. And he wants Loki more than he should. Loki wants him just as much, but it wouldn't cost him the way it would cost David. And it's all about cost here, isn't it? Cost. Supply and demand. David's here to provide a service, to get as much cash as quickly as he can, with as little effort as he can. Fucking his boss on the side isn't too much of a stretch. If he's happy, everybody's happy.

Still. David doesn't do it.

* * *

David walks into the diner, bored and wet and tired. Old jeans, old t-shirt, no jacket; his hair pushed out of his face. Senna is sitting in the back corner by herself, wearing a short white dress made nearly transparent by the rain. One of the plus sides of being coked out of your mind all the time – you don't get cold.

"David."

"Senna."

"David the Dragonslayer," she continues. "David the Fool."

_Definitely_ coked out of her mind.

"Want something to eat?"

Senna looks up at him coyly. "Anything but meat."

And people wonder why David doesn't do drugs.

He tells one of the trolls Loki keeps behind the counter to make them burgers and fries, to get Senna a lemonade.

"Thanks."

"Anything for my favorite girl." And Senna _is_ his favorite. Senna and her celluloid eyes and cocaine dreams, how she speaks in tongues even when she's clean. She's dark and she's crazy and she's going to go tits up as a flaming fucking disaster one day, but even that doesn't change how beautiful she is.

Senna doesn't eat her food when it comes. Just plays with it. David eats while Senna chatters and stops, her thoughts stuttering through her open lips and off her tongue. David listens with only half an ear, but every muscle in his body tightens, every hair on the back of his neck stands on end when Loki walks into the room.

Senna takes another sip of her lemonade, demure as all hell, before smiling sweetly up at him. "Loki."

"How's my favorite girl?"

She'd be Loki's favorite too, of course.

"Waiting."

"Waiting for what?" Loki's gazes rakes over David the same way it always does – razes him, rapes him, leaves him bare and hot and inhuman. It should feel different than it does. It should scare him more.

"Inevitabilities," Senna sighs. "Always inevitabilities, here. Like rolling loaded dice and expecting a different outcome. Anything but forty-two." She turns suddenly to grab David's hand. "General David. General. My General. When it comes, will you save me?"

Her fingernails did into the surface of his skin, little pinpricks, and Senna's pupils are so dilated, so luminous and so large that he forgets what color her eyes were in the first place.

"Of course I will." What else could he tell her? What else would he do?

Loki's smile is even sharper than usual. "A general, is he?"

"The greatest," Senna says dreamily, and drops David's hand to the table. "Hero of the people. Insect who is not quite a god."

David shoots Loki a look, silently asking just how much coke she's had. Loki just shrugs. Maybe a line, maybe twelve. He's her dealer, not her keeper.

David sighs. "I'll go get April."

Senna has one hand down the front of her dress now, absently stroking the hollow between her breasts. "My keeper. My lock. It won't be my blood, in the end."

David's knee brushes Loki's thigh when he eases his way out of the booth. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't even notice.

"I'll see to that," Senna says quietly. "I'll see to that."


	7. Chapter 6

David gets Senna tucked into her bed safe and sound, like the innocent little girl she isn't. She doesn't do much more than strip down and caress David's cheekbone coyly, which is pretty low-key for Senna, coked or not. He nods at April on the way out. She's still muzzy from sleep, a mess of red hair atop a white t-shirt and a dark smudge between her legs that may or may not have been underwear. She probably didn't even know Senna was gone. Despite what she does for her, April has never been Senna's keeper.

It's only a flight of stairs to his own shitty apartment. David leans against the door for a minute and starts wondering when Senna's shit began to bother him so much. When Loki began to affect him so much. He's been half-hard ever since the diner and he can't think of too many things that would piss him off more. It means he's lost just enough control to not have any at all, and that's just enough to push him into a uselessly self-destructive mood. David is the only fucking thing that David can count on. If he can't count on himself, well, nothing here is going to save him.

David takes a deep breath. Wills himself to calm down even as he knows that it won't help.

"Fuck."

He makes himself breathe out one more time before doing anything, then palms himself through his jeans, deliberately not imagining anyone as he does it – not Senna, not Loki, not April. Not even a nameless, faceless body. He punishes himself with the rasp of wet denim across the head of his cock – three or four short, vicious strokes just this side of rough. It feels good, almost good _enough_. Not really what he wants and he knows that too.

Talk about things that piss him off.

He can't remember the last time he had to masturbate because he was so hard it hurt –

_except he lies, he can: last month, Loki's sharp smile and warm hand where it probably technically generally shouldn't have been, warm words with just the right sharp edge of meaning and David couldn't stop thinking about it for a week _  –

because it doesn't happen very much anymore. He doesn't need to "take the edge off" like when he first started. He's past that horrifying adolescent stage where everything turned him on and he's moving onto the stage where he has to work for it sometimes. It's all right. Makes him feel less like a slut, more like its actual work. He appreciates it. It's the one thing he could say he envied the girls, if he were being truthful. They get to lie about it. They grow up _expecting_ to fake their orgasms, to tell lies about them, to maybe never have any at all. No one can really tell they're turned on, no one can really tell they're not if they learn how to fake it well enough. If they aren't really interested in paying attention.

David's never had that luxury. He either lives terrifyingly in the moment, or he focuses _so hard_ on splitting his mind in two, on keeping _this_ from _that_, that he can't reconcile the two when he wants. And he knows, he _knows_ Loki would want both. Would _demand_ both. The thought sends another jolt through him, and David squeezes himself again, a hiss of air escaping through his teeth. Punishment or pleasure? Which was he looking for? Which does he want?

This doesn't happen to him, this wishy-washy passive aggressiveness. This isn't him. David's always been prone to extremes. He either knows or he doesn't. He likes it or he doesn't. He'll do it or he won't. He isn't one for regrets or deliberation, and maybe that's what confuses him most about Loki. Whenever David tries to make a decision one way or another he can't commit himself to it. There's nothing about Loki he can count on.

Except, of course, the part where he gets frustratingly hard every damn time.

* * *

Payday in Everworld.

That's the name for the neighborhood. Loki's neighborhood; it stretches from Valhalla Drive to Greco South. They call it Everworld because it tends to suck people in. The customers, the junkies, the dealers, the whores – all lifers. Stuck here for better or worse, forever and ever. Sure, people drift their way in, and some manage to claw their way out, but that's definitely the exception to the rule.

"Everworld," David remembers Athena whispering to him. "A place that shouldn't exist, but does anyway, babycakes."

Athena's one of the few that got out. Alive, at that. Loki probably had a hand in it. They had some tie between them that David could never quite figure out. Nothing sexual, nothing familial, but something beyond business. Friends, maybe, if you could use that word down here and expect it to mean something.

Anyway. Payday. Payday for Loki that is. Every second and fourth Tuesday, all the hookers and some of the dealers bring down a portion of their earnings. No one's ever stupid enough to stiff Loki. At least not anyone that sticks around for very long. Fenrir makes sure that everyone hands over just the right amount. He knows who's really been sick and who's coming down off a bad dose, who got beat bad enough to stay off work and who's just being goddamn lazy. Etain tries that sometimes. David doesn't consider that an excuse anymore than Fenrir and Loki do. Tricking is a job like any other when you come down to it. No fucking excuses. Etain's a lazy bitch, one who thinks she's a lot prettier than she is, but that's not really the point.

The point. Christ. Like he fucking has a point. Do your work, hand in your money, take a day off and do it all the fuck over again. Simple.   David's breath doesn't start to shorten when he walks up the stairs to Loki's office. His face doesn't flush, his heart doesn't beat any faster. He doesn't expect a goddamn thing. He doesn't, because he never knows what to expect.

He nods at Fenrir and opens the door.

* * *

Loki always looks more at home in his office than David thinks he should. Loki, in both look and deed, has always reminded him more of a rogue, a pirate, a criminal. His office is a study in understated elegance. A throwback to the real gentleman's clubs, when only gentleman went into them. You can see it in the furniture – lots of wood and leather. Everything earthy and solid, plain and sturdy, but high-quality. Beautiful. Nothing bright, nothing feminine. It fits Loki better than anyone – except maybe Loki – might have guessed.

When Loki looks up at David, there's a hunger in his eyes that's almost entirely animal, and an intelligence that's anything but. It has to be Loki's fault, all these contradictions.

David drops his money on the desk and starts to walk away. He's not in the mood for barbs or innuendoes, or, worse, Loki's devastatingly _honest_ questions about how he is.

In retrospect, it was perhaps a bad idea not to say anything. Like a challenge, maybe. Or giving in. Something David should have known better than to dangle in front of Loki's face. And it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion, the way Loki's hand stretches past his head to press down on the door and clamp it closed. David's eyes slide closed.

Loki presses up against David's back, one hand on the doorjamb, the other around David's waist. Never dipping too low. Not really. there. Not really anywhere it shouldn't be. It shouldn't feel quite so much like an invasion. Not until Loki moves again, pushing David up against the wall, sliding in so every inch of his body is flush to David's.

It's all Loki can do to breathe on the back of his neck instead of bite it. David must know that.

And still, not an inch of David's body betrays him. His heart doesn't beat any faster. His breath doesn't catch. Loki envies that kind of control. He wants to rip it apart with both hands. With his teeth.

"Little General." The nickname is mocking. The tone is honeyed. Loki pushes deep, even breaths along the back of his neck. "How long have I waited?"

"A long time," David says, and Loki is only half-sure he heard a small waver. "Probably going to be even longer."

A low, genuine chuckle bubbles up out of his throat. He wants to throw his head back and feel it down to his toes. "Ah, David. I _would_ enjoy you. And you would enjoy yourself. I'd make sure of it." He lets go off David with luxuriant slowness. With a promise of all kinds of heat.

David shuts the door carefully, slow enough to hear the lock click into place as his hand slides off of the doorknob.

Then he collapses against the door.

His pulse starts to hammer. His knees are weak and he's breathing hard through his nose, like he's just run a marathon. There's something in him like a dam breaking. His left hand is clenching and unclenching, the other pressed like a knot to his lower stomach. His blood is – his blood is _pounding_, and Fenrir is all ready half out of his chair, his normally stoic face twisted, contorted with something that David finally realizes is _concern_, and it still takes David a half-moment to pull himself up.

His voice is raspier than he expected. Shakier than he would have liked. "Does he have anything important to do tonight?" Or tomorrow, he thinks about asking. Christ.

Fenrir shakes his head slowly.

"Good."

David reaches for the doorknob. He knows. He knows this is probably a big fat fucking mistake, and that here, even little mistakes can get you killed.

That said… yeah. David's gonna do this.

He swings the door open with a nonchalance he doesn't feel and closes it with a steadiness he doesn't think will hold up for very long. Not if anything he knows about Loki holds true.

Loki is all ready sitting back at the desk, and when he lifts his gaze his face betrays nothing, like he wasn't just wrapped around David in that very doorway a minute and a half ago.

David can feel his palms sweating. "I thought maybe I'd stay for awhile." He isn't one for excuses or lies. Loki would see through them anyway.

At least… finally, a decision. The look in Loki's eyes isn't something he'll be able to forget anytime soon.

"As long as you like."

David has the almost disconcerting feeling Loki means it.


End file.
